


The Tale of Two-Fifty and Earless Joe MacCready

by wintergrey



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Adventure, Arguments, Awkward Romance, Banter, Disaster, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Medication, Medicinal Drug Use, Mild Blood, No Sex, no kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5749930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Shay thinks she knows where the clues to something important lie, deep underground. She takes Dogmeat and MacCready with her because she can't trust anyone else. MacCready doesn't know what's going on but he's going to follow her as far as she goes--even if she tells him to turn back without her.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <b>Warnings: injury, mention of blood, mild profanity</b></p><p> </p><p> This started out from a kink prompt generator (helplessness + pet names) but turned into a mostly G-rated non-romantic romance sort of thing. It's rated T for the language, injury, and the use of drugs with recreational value. The Random Renamer was kind enough to give me Shay Jordan as my Sole Survivor's name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of Two-Fifty and Earless Joe MacCready

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyGoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGoat/gifts).



"So, what got me the honour of accompanying you on this trip?" MacCready nearly takes the fast way to the bottom of the trail to the cave mouth as he follows Shay downhill in the pounding rain. He's soaked, water rushes in cold rivers from the nape of his neck to the crack of his ass, his feet slosh around in his boots. Even Dogmeat, usually the only one more cheerful than Shay, looks despairing. His ears are plastered down and his tail droops miserably.

Shay skates down the last few feet of muck and fades from sight in the cave without answering. Lightning snaps across the ominous sky. Everything is painfully white and then suddenly it's all so black. MacCready knows the tight dark of caves but the open and boundless dark of the upper world is terrifying. A moment later, the green glow of Shay's Pip-Boy gives MacCready something to steer by and he follows her into the cave mouth.

"I dunno," Shay says as he catches up to her. She's wringing the rain out of her long black hair and something about it--the way she bends at the waist, the glossy cord of it knotted around her slender brown hands--gets him in the gut. No. Lower. "You look like a man who knows his way around in the dark," she goes on, oblivious to his inner turmoil.

When she straightens, sliding bobby pins in her hair to lock it up as deftly as she unlocks safes and doors, she winks at him. It's so quick MacCready isn't sure it happened but then he sees her half-smile and he thinks maybe it did.

That might actually be flirting, something he's terrible at noticing, much less doing. His wife used to make fun of him for it, back before he married her. Guess it wasn't that much of a big deal to some women, which was good for him.

Coming from someone like the Survivor, though, that was a whole other level of anxiety and confusion. They're close but he never knows how close or what to make of it. He's just happy to be there so he doesn't question. He doesn't plan to leave if he can help it. Whatever's going on, he'll take it.

"Well, it is a little like home," he manages to say. She's the only one who doesn't hassle him about how much he still hates being under open sky. There's a pitiful whine and something nudges his leg. Well, her and Dogmeat.

Whine. Dogmeat isn't sure he likes this cave. He feels about caves like MacCready feels about being outside.

"You'll be fine in there, boy," he says, grateful for the distraction of scratching the dog behind the ears. "There's probably mole rats."

Dogmeat bares his teeth and raises his hackles dramatically, growling. Mole rats are a good fight and tasty--at least if you're a dog.

"That's right. Evil, evil mole rats."

Dogmeat's enthusiastic barks bounce off the walls and ceiling.

"Why are you winding up my dog?" Shay is crouched awkwardly in front of a terminal that's hanging upside down from the last intact bracket on the wall. She has a faster hand with computers than anyone but that synth she keeps around, Nick.

"We're just gettin' ready to get our fight on," MacCready says. Dogmeat bounces around him, huffing fiercely. "Got some evil, evil mole rats to kill. Right, Meat?"

"Oh, you two. Don't you get him going about those things, Robert Joseph MacCready," Shay mutters. "Mama Murphy still hasn't forgiven you for what you boys did to the carrot patch."

"I didn't think he'd believe me about that," MacCready says guiltily. He's warm through, though, in spite of being soaked. The embrace of the stone around them, the chiding in Shay's voice, the way she uses his full name, it's all familiar and sweet in ways he never thought he'd know again.

"Well, you're an excellent liar. And a scoundrel." She doesn't sound that upset about it. The terminal beeps, something clicks in the shadows, and Shay straightens with a sharp exhalation. "There we go."

"What are we here for?" MacCready follows Dogmeat around an outcropping to find a vent shaft set into the floor, half buried under fallen stone. He kicks away the debris to clear the vent, disturbing a skeleton in the process. Dogmeat drags a centuries-old lunch box out from under the bones, making grumpy noises.

"Clues." The lunch box hits the floor, probably right at her feet. "I don't care what's in there, Meat, you're not having it. You're going to get botulism."

Whimper.

"You may not kill yourself by eating two-hundred year old lunchmeat," Shay says reasonably. "You want some iguana?"

Cough. Spit. That would be a no. MacCready hates iguana, too. Kind of slimy.

"Clues to what?" MacCready gets his fingers into the grating and pulls, heaving against rust and the warping of the metal.

"Just between us?" Shay comes over to help him pull. She's almost as strong as he is and, together, they get the vent open.

"Of course." He'll keep any secret she gives him, no matter what.

For a fraction of a second, she looks uncertain and she bites her lip. That's a rare thing for the Sole Survivor. Then it's over, she shakes her head, and drops down into the vent without hesitation. MacCready's heart drops into the dark with her, he reaches reflexively, but she's gone. He hears her feet hit something solid and it feels as though his heart starts up again after clenching too tight to beat as she fell.

"I'll tell you when we get there." Her voice echoes up the shaft. Whatever it is, it must be important.

There's a grinding noise and, in the light from her Pip-Boy down below, MacCready can make out rungs of a ladder now jutting out from the wall. Clever. Dogmeat will be happy, at least on the way back. He can climb anything--and does, to everyone's dismay--but getting him back down can be a trick. MacCready reaches for the harness hooked to the outside of his pack. Time to make the dog sad; they both hate this part.

It's coming up on seven hours of important, whatever it is. They get lost twice, racking up at least two hours of fruitless walking, crawling, and climbing; then they lose three hours to digging out an extensive collapsed section.

"This is why you brought me, is it?" MacCready shoves dirt back at her and she passes it on to Dogmeat who happily kicks it behind them. No one else would have coped with the tight spaces and the blackness the way he can, maybe not even Nick, and MacCready is more resilient than the old synth. And, no one else would know how to shore up this collapse so they could get through without having it fall in behind them. "Here I thought you just wanted to get me alone."

"This isn't exactly how we did it in the good old days, no. It'd be considered a pretty lousy first date. Are we through?"

"Almost." MacCready's hands are cracked and bleeding in spite of the fact that he's been digging with the collapsible shovel Shay brought down with them. She can't be much better off. He can hear--or feel--the dirt giving way on the other side of the blockage. Overhead, he's working with a tangle of rebar and broken concrete to keep the earth from coming down as he makes room for them to get through. "Whatever's down here better be good, lady."

"It'll be a clue to something good. But it's good."

"Okay." That's all MacCready needs to know. He jams the shovel through the last inches of dirt, then starts making enough of a hole for them to get through.

"Okay?"

"I trust you. You don't bullshit. Water?" MacCready waits for her to pass him some dirty water she got at the mouth of the cave, just to have extra on hand for things like this. She's always carrying weird stuff but it usually comes in handy so he's stopped questioning her about it. He soaks the clay-rich earth, smooths it and pounds it into place until nothing shifts under his fists. "Done."

He gets out of the way to let her go through first. She shoves their gear through, then sends Dogmeat ahead to pull it out of her way when she follows. There's not much room to move in here. They're both filthy and sweaty. From what MacCready knows of old time culture, this is not a date or anything of the sort at all. Kind of the opposite. Just another job. Together.

"We're in the other building," Shay says quietly, looking down at her Pip-Boy. She's right, the quality of the shaft walls has changed, the metal is different. The break must have been due in part to the difference in age between the sections. "This is all part of what should have been another CIT project. It was meant to be a kind of vault, but for academics, just like the Institute. They lost contact with it and never knew why. Father, I mean Shaun--" Her voice catches, but she recovers. "He disagreed that it failed because it wasn't finished. He thinks they were cut off deliberately. Possibly even murdered."

"How?"

"I don't know. Probably poisoned, maybe irradiated." She pours a little clean water into one hand for Dogmeat to drink. "I don't care. I don't want anything but the directions they have on their mainframe."

"Directions to...?"

"I'll tell you if I find them." Her face is drawn, her eyes wide with inexplicable fear, and then she switches off the Pip-Boy. "We're almost there."

Almost. Beyond the collapse, they take a vent shaft that leads them into a vast and echoing empty reservoir. The builders must have been able to fit a whole lake in here. It's so big there's no echo, the sound of their footfalls is frayed to nothing before it finds anything solid.

All the while, they're descending, first in the vents and then stairs, endless stairs, down the reservoir. They leave the reservoir through a series of airlocks and come out in the central environmental control area, according to the signage. There is a little light here, low amber dots along the walls. Shay looks disturbed.

"What?" MacCready isn't used to seeing her like this.

"This isn't...it's a CEC but the ranges aren't what I'd expect for housing people." Shay stops in front of a bank of machines flashing anxious red lights like a sea of pounding hearts. She presses a button and a voice fills the room.

"Reservoirs low. Cooling turbines disabled. Auxiliary power only," the voice says. It's a woman, a woman long-dead, dispassionate and steady. "Do not engage processors until reservoir levels are green. This message will repeat."

Shay presses another button. "Data banks five-thousand-ninety-four to eight-thousand-twenty-nine offline," a man intones. "Data bank corruption at thirty-three percent."

"That sounds like a lot of data banks, whatever the hell those are." MacCready thinks they might be computer storage, he's heard the term before, when they've been hunting for tech. Never gave it much thought.

"It's a lot." Shay's voice is taut. The next button releases a third voice into the room.

"Personnel report," it says cheerfully. A woman again, younger and brighter. "All organic personnel functions are offline. Synthetic personnel functions idle to conserve processing power. Please restart processors. Autoturrets and autorobots online."

"Good to know," MacCready mutters. "What does all that mean?"

"Everything's dead except the bots and turrets. Including what we came for." Shay rubs her hands over her face. "Though...it's only disengaged. Maybe we could start it up long enough to get the answers, then shut it down again."

"It? What is it?" MacCready trusts her but he doesn't trust anything around them and he needs to know what they're getting into.

"I thought the Institute might have been wrong about what was down here but I didn't tell them that." Shay crosses the room to a map bolted on the wall by the door. "They thought this was a project like theirs. Researchers and synths and all that. But it's not. It's just one thing. A supercomputer."

"Super...computer?" MacCready doesn't like the sound of that and he's not even sure of what it really is. Super technology of any kind makes him think of Super Mutants and those are bad news.

"A computer meant to think and know and learn. Meant to understand everything that happened to bring us to this point." Shay draws Deliverer--she always starts with that quiet little gun--as the door slides open with a hushed sigh. "Meant to watch and learn and shape the future. And it knows things we need to know to survive. I came here to ask it."

"Okay, let's ask this whatever it is and then go home. That's the plan, right?" MacCready hurts all over, he's tired and hungry. Dogmeat whines softly. He wants to go home, too. "Where is it?"

"Here," Shay says almost reverently. Her voice slides along the corridor and disappears into the vast silence.

"Where?" MacCready looks around, baffled. All he sees is hallway and more hallway.

"We're inside it. This is the supercomputer, RJ. The whole thing. We're in the computer."

In the computer. That sounds like a bad dream but here they are, hundreds of feet underground, inside a sleeping machine. They find the empty cryo pods for the human maintenance staff first, which gives them advance warning about the ghouls. Shay shoots them down so fast MacCready can hardly get more than a single shot off. Her expression never changes but she doesn't look at the pods, like it hurts her eyes to even glance that way as they pass through.

"Poor bastards," MacCready mutters as he steps over their twisted corpses. "Least you can rest now."

Shay is always so calm when she fights, it's eerie. Her expression never changes, her eyes are black and deep, like twin gun barrels. MacCready expects her to fire bullets from them sometimes, the way she stares right through her target. Then her trigger finger tenses and her attention skips to the next problem the moment the bullet leaves her gun. Problem. That's what her enemies are, just problems. It's nothing personal for her. She solves them and moves on. He'd think she was a synth, a computer, herself except that he knows he'd feel it in his gut if she was anything but human.

They tick through turrets and bots like clockwork. It's familiar and good. He holds back the tide, she picks it apart one bullet at a time. When they're fighting, he doesn't have to think. Then they stop and his mind starts up again.

"So we found the biggest computer maybe in the world, and we don't want it?" MacCready puts the question out there while she's hacking through a security door.

"We don't need it. It'd be nice but it's not what we need." The door slides open. "We'll have time to look back on what went wrong in the past when we're done making the present right."

MacCready was wondering why there was a security door here but, when they step inside, he knows. Sometimes the few books they have will talk about being in church, in a cathedral. This must be what it feels like. The sound moves differently here, almost like being in a cave but too structured for that. MacCready can hear their breaths being carried up into the blackness of the vaulted ceiling high above.

"This is it." He says it as a statement. Everything here is almost familiar, banks and towers of machinery, but on a whole new scale. At the centre of the circular room is a gathering of white metal pillars streaked with lights. They stand around a central cluster of pipes like soldiers several stories tall and the lights flutter as though whatever runs them is dreaming.

"Yes." Shay pulls a holotape from her pocket as she approaches the pillars.

"You're not going to..."

"I'm going to wake it up and ask it what I need to know."

Dogmeat sits at the threshold and whines sorrowfully, unwilling to go further. MacCready doesn't blame him.

"That reservoir. It was huge. And it's empty. They didn't make it that big for no reason. The pipes for this thing must be dry as bones." MacCready makes himself follow her.

"It doesn't have to be for long. I only have one question. It just needs to download the information and I'll shut it off again." Shay stops before a small panel on the shortest pillar. It's still more than twice her height.

"Shay..."

She presses one button, then another.

"I stole codes from the Institute's oldest records. This might not even work." She keeps tapping buttons without response and, for a moment, MacCready thinks they might head home empty-handed.

Then, something rumbles and the lights brighten slowly as though dawn is breaking. The ventilation louvres tilt, stale air swirls, and water gates crash open underfoot.

"Boot sequence starting," the bright woman's voice says. "Please stand by. Water levels are at zero. Select A and enter overseer's code to continue." Shay does as instructed. "Runtime beginning. ORACLE THREE online. Database corruption detected. Servers at fifty percent."

"Quarantine corruption, place all potential scenarios on standby, switch processing load to auxiliary servers," Shay says evenly. "Prepare to access remaining databases, security level Alpha."

"Acknowledged overseer. Preparing readiness estimate." They wait for the answer as the computer grinds and sighs back to life, Shay pacing the circle of pillars to check each one's performance. "Readiness estimate, sixty-two minutes."

"We don't have an hour," MacCready points out. The way things are shaking around them already, he's not sure they have five minutes. The rumble has turned into a groan, the air smells like hot metal instead of time.

"Priority Query, suspend all processes to reduce delays," Shay orders. "Information on all BioArcs requested." She pushes the holotape into the waiting slot. "Backup all responses. Please reply."

"Secondary code required," the computer murmurs. MacCready can hardly hear her over the sound of straining metal and burning oil. Shay is typing furiously. MacCready isn't sure he even thinks that fast but fast is what they need. Systems meant to be water-cooled are running hot with nothing to smooth their workings but lubrication gone stiff from two centuries of neglect. It won't take long before plastic and insulation catch fire and then they're in trouble. "Secondary code accepted. Download commencing."

"You should go," Shay says, as the lights falter. "I didn't know it would be this fast. They didn't have any alternative safety systems."

"I'm not leaving you." MacCready winces as one of the pipes twists overhead, raining white paint chips down on them like petals.

"Location of nearest BioArk," Shay shouts at the computer. "Where is it?"

"Nearest BioArk is Ark Two," the computer says. "Associated city is Jackson, New Hampshire."

"Jackson, New Hampshire." Shay grabs MacCready by the shoulders. "You can't forget that."

"What's there?" MacCready only has a vague understanding of where New Hamshire is.

"Everything. Absolutely everything we need." Shay is shoving him toward the door. "It's north. You just go straight north. You can't forget that."

"I won't." MacCready is torn between fleeing and staying to protect her but if this is important--he understands responsibility, always has. When he was the one giving orders, he needed people to obey or they were all screwed. He starts backing toward the door. "But you have to come, Shay. You have to, now. We need you, too."

"Download complete," the computer says faintly. A panel big enough to shelter half of Sanctuary hits the ground not two feet from Shay and MacCready only just manages to grab Dogmeat's collar before the dog goes charging in after her.

"We gotta go, boy." He doesn't want to leave her but she's going back for the holotape and he's got his responsibilities. He's always taken care of his responsibilities. He hefts Dogmeat up and runs for the door because it's the only way he's going to get the damn dog to leave.

"End all processes." Shay's voice seeps through the chaos as though MacCready's ears are tuned to its frequency. The walls are starting to sway. "Engage fire cessation protocols. Eject fusion cores. Disengage power conduits."

At first MacCready thinks it's an illusion that her voice is getting closer but then he stops in the doorway to look and he catches sight of her running toward him just as a sheet of flame belches out of a towering computer bank and cuts her off. There's a terrible screaming of metal tearing as the whole assembly twists and falls, burning. Too late. No going back.

"No, no, no," someone's saying over and over and it has to be him. He keeps dragging Dogmeat deeper into the smoky hall. "Jackson, New Hampshire," he says, so he'll stop babbling protests no one would care about even if anyone was there to hear. "Jackson, New Hampshire. Just go North. North to Jackson."

Everything is streaked with red from warning lights and fire, the temperature has soared to levels that sear his throat when MacCready inhales. Falling ceiling panels cut him off so he has to let Dogmeat go to get them out of the way.

"Stay." He gives Dogmeat a shake by the collar and Dogmeat howls pitifully. "I need you to stay." He hopes that security door closed behind him so Dogmeat can't get back into the chaos. This is the hardest thing he's ever done, leaving. No matter how many times he does it, it never gets easier. Leaving Lamplight, leaving Lucy, leaving Duncan. Leaving Shay. Someone has to do it, though. It's his turn, again.

He cuts his hands hauling the panels aside and he doesn't notice until he wipes tears from his face and only makes it wetter. It's then that he realizes that all he's hearing is silence, silence so loud he couldn't differentiate it from disaster. Somewhere, distantly, a fire extinguisher hisses.

Dogmeat bolts back the way they came the minute MacCready shifts his weight to move. MacCready is hot on his heels all the way back down the twists and turns. The security door is closed, MacCready can't see anything but smoke inside. Dogmeat barks wildly, scrabbling at the lock.

"Hang on, hang on." MacCready's fingers are sticky on the terminal keys as he tries to get it open. Fortunately, it didn't lock again, not properly. He selects 'open' from the menu and steps back as the door obeys. The second it's open enough to squeeze through, Dogmeat is gone into the smoke and debris.

"Shay!" MacCready follows more slowly. If he fails to get out of here, he won't get to Jackson and this will all have been for nothing. "Meat, can you find her?"

Angry bark. Of course Dogmeat can find her, how stupid does MacCready think he is?

"Sorry. Sorry." MacCready slips in insulation that's been reduced to fine ash. "Is she alive?" He pretends his voice didn't break on that word.

Whine. Anxious bark. Hurry up, monkey.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." There's almost no light in here now, the standby lights are gone save a few flickering here and there. Anything he touches is either burning or broken, his lungs are heavy with smoke and fumes. MacCready feels in a pocket for Stimpaks. He has three. Just three. Shay had the rest of that gear. He's got their water and weapons.

He finds Shay back at the white pillars, or what's left of them. She must have retreated from the flame only to be caught when the pillars fell. She looks like she's sleeping but instead of sheets pulled up around her it's one of the pillars that covers her up past the waist. Her face is streaked with soot and ashy-pale underneath that. MacCready doesn't want to touch her, doesn't want to feel the stillness in her throat, but then her chest rises and falls just a little.

Survivor. That's what she is, that's what she does. MacCready hits her with a Stimpak before he says her name.

"Shay." She doesn't move but, the next breath, her chest rises a little higher.

Dogmeat barks sharply, then starts scrabbling at the floor under the wreckage, trying to dig her out.

"Don't do that, buddy." MacCready grabs his collar again. "You can't dig through concrete, that shit's reinforced."

Angry bark. Then you do something, asshole.

"Yeah, I know, me with the thumbs and you with the ideas. We're kinda screwed." MacCready scans the chaos for a sign of Shay's gear. She had Stimpaks in there, Med-X, all kinds of useful stuff. There has to be something he can do that's a better plan than Dogmeat's. "We really need her to wake up."

Unhappy whine. Dogmeat noses Shay's cheek, then licks her face, leaving a nose print and a clean streak in the dust that covers her. That, at least, gets a flutter of her eyelashes. Good sign.

"We need her gear," MacCready says. "Can you find anything of hers?"

Bark. Dogmeat can try, at least.

"Okay, I'll look after her." MacCready drops his gear, offloads his weapons, so he can move better. There's no way he can shift the computer lying across her, but maybe...he gets down to feel around under, to see how bad things are. Maybe he can pull her out. The hand he slides under goes all of a foot and a half, comes back covered in her blood. "Shit."

To use another Stimpak now or save it for later is the question. If Shay was awake, he'd ask her, but she's still out cold. MacCready wipes her blood, and his, off on his thigh before he takes better stock of her condition. He doesn't want to know because he's afraid he knows already.

Her hair is stiff and filthy but the wetness under his fingers as he probes her scalp for injuries feels like sweat instead of blood. Learning the shape of her skull is strangely intimate, holding her mind and everything in it in his hands is unnerving. She's helpless, he's never seen her helpless before.

"I'm gonna fix this," he promises, even though he hasn't got a damn clue how. "Okay," he says, once his inspection is over. "Your brains are where they belong, so it's time to quit napping and help me out here."

Two Stimpaks left unless Dogmeat finds her gear. The dog is still out of sight, hunting. No joy yet. MacCready needs her awake so he gives her the second one.

"Come on," he murmurs to her, stroking her face. "Get back here." He considers holding her hand but one arm is twisted under her and the other, when he tries to pull it free, feels unstable up high on the big bone as though it's fractured. If he can just find a way to lift the impossibly heavy weight on her, maybe Dogmeat could help pull her out. That's a pipe dream right now, though.

"RJ?"

That's him, his name, slurred and weak. That's her voice.

"Hey, I'm here." His own voice comes out all shaky with relief.

"Not s'posed to be." Shay's face twists with pain as consciousness comes back to her. "Jesus," she whispers.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Not for coming back," he clarifies. "I shouldn't have left you."

"Bullshit. Where's Meat?" She inhales, then whimpers, screwing her eyes shut against tears of pain. That hurts like a knife to the gut and MacCready should know, he got stabbed there once in a bar fight.

"Looking for your gear. We need more Stimpaks."

"Where's the holotape?" Shay struggles to move, then sags back, white with pain. "The holotape, you have to find it, please. Just find it and take it to Preston."

"Fuck the holotape." MacCready doesn't punch anything but it's only because he needs his hands if he's going to help her and they're already in bad enough shape. "Meat, where are you?" There's scrabbling from somewhere in the debris field but he can't actually see the dog.

"No swearing," Shay says breathlessly. "You promised."

"I think Duncan would understand." MacCready is about to go after the damn dog when Dogmeat pops his head up from under a collapsed concrete pillar. He doesn't have the pack but there's something in his mouth. "That better be a Stimpak."

It's not. It's the goddamn holotape. Dogmeat picks his way over to Shay and puts it down on her chest, whining pitifully.

"Good boy." She turns her face toward him and he licks her forehead. "I need you to take that to Preston, since this guy here isn't cooperating with me."

Angry barking, a volley of it, right in MacCready's face. Dog breath and outrage at close range.

"Hey, I'm not leaving her!" Great, he's fighting with the dog now. She's dying and he's fighting with both of them about this stupid holotape. "I need to lift this damn machine so we can get her out. So unless you have a bright idea about that, you need to go get help. Preston, Hancock, hell, I don't care if you bring the Brotherhood. Just go find someone."

Whine. Dogmeat flops down beside Shay with his chin on her shoulder.

"I know it's a long trip and she doesn't have much time but if we can't find her gear, she's going to die." He didn't mean for that to come out right here where Shay could hear him. "Take the holotape or not, but you have to go."

"RJ." Shay's voice is as gentle as a hand on his shoulder but MacCready isn't in the mood to be comforted.

"I'm having a conversation with your dog here. The gear is probably under all this. If we could get you out, we'd probably find it, and save you. But we can't. I can't." MacCready wants to wake up, wants anything to be happening but this. "I'm not strong enough. If I had power armour, maybe I could lift it, but it was your bright idea to bring me and not someone useful like Danse."

"I brought you because I trust you," Shay says quietly. She's so steady, always. "And you," she adds, tilting her head toward Dogmeat. "I trust you two more than anyone else in the world. Meat, I need you to..." She doesn't finish the sentence because Dogmeat bolts off into the corridor like a slug out of a Gauss rifle. Bam. Gone. And the holotape is left behind.

"Good dog." MacCready picks the damn thing up and pockets it. "Now, we wait. You thirsty?" He has water, that much he can do.

"I need to pee, actually." Shay's little laugh is cut off by a gasp of pain.

"Well, I won't tell." MacCready settles down next to her and gives in to the urge to stroke her cheek.

Shay's skin is satiny, the colour of oiled wood, and he's spent hours trying not to stare at the way light plays off it: the luminous green of her Pip-Boy, the gold of firelight, the white glare of searchlights. Light loves her skin. She glows except she's lost it now when she's gone dull with pain and blood loss.

"I'm sorry," she says, turning her face into his touch. "I didn't think it would go this way."

"Really?" MacCready can't quite buy that. She thinks of everything.

"Okay, I didn't think you'd be able to get back in if it did. And I really thought I'd have time to get you the holotape." Shay closes her eyes. "If it went wrong, that is. I wasn't counting on it being this bad."

"What's on this thing anyway? What's a BioArk?" MacCready pulls the holotape out to look it over. It's just a little square of plastic, blue and white instead of the usual yellow and white. He doesn't know how it works beyond the fact that you shove it in a machine to make it go, doesn't even know what the colours mean. Shay knows.

"You remember I said things were bad before the war?" Shay sounds a little laboured when she talks but keeping her busy is probably best.

"People were hungry and there was already all kinds of radiation, right?" MacCready can't imagine it was worse than this but from what she's said, it wasn't paradise. Not for most people.

"The world was already falling apart, for decades," Shay says. "So scientists were getting ready. They made the Ark. It's a reference to the Bible story about the world flooding. The myth is that God put two of each animal on a boat to save them. The Arks are full of seeds and plants and animal DNA and instructions on how to bring life back." Shay smiles slowly, her gaze fixed somewhere past the ceiling. "Everything is there, RJ. Everything."

"How could we forget? Who was supposed to keep track of this stuff?" MacCready is staggered by the enormity of her suggestion and the realization that, if she was the only one to know about it, people might have gone on for centuries without finding these places.

"I only knew because Nick was supposed to be deployed to one in case of an invasion. I didn't know where, though. But I knew they were out there." Shay finally focuses back on him, on the real world, and MacCready relaxes a little. That far-off look in her eyes scared him. She's usually so present. "I didn't want the Institute or the Brotherhood to know, so I didn't say. And I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, either."

"So this..." Suddenly, MacCready feels a lot differently about the holotape in his hands.

"It should have what we need to find them, and to get in. They might be ruined but I don't think they can all be gone. There's has to be a little left." Shay's voice breaks and she chokes on a sob.

"Hey, hey." MacCready shoves the holotape in his pocket so he can wipe her tears away. He bends over her, it's all he can do to get close to her when he wants to pull her into his arms and shelter her. She never lets anyone protect her. "It'll be there. This is here and it took more of a hit than this Jackson place, I bet. We'll find it."

"You won't if you don't get out of here," Shay says with only a hint of her usual tartness.

"I'll leave when you do." MacCready lets himself kiss her forehead. "I won't leave you behind, I shouldn't have left you behind."

"RJ..."

"Don't argue."

"I can't feel my legs." When MacCready pulls back, she's staring at him with unadulterated panic in her eyes. "I can't. I could and they hurt a lot and now I can't, I don't know when it happened. I have to get up. I can't breathe."

"They're probably just asleep." He's lying, they know it, but he's a good liar when he has to be. "We'll get this thing off you and fill you up with Med-X and Stimpaks and then we'll go home. You're breathing, I promise." Maybe not well, but she is.

"Tell me something. I don't care. Just. Anything." Shay slows her breathing deliberately, her eyes locked on his face as though he's some kind of anchor. He's good at that, too, when he has to be.

"Okay. You remember Little Lamplight?" He settles as close to her as he can, thigh against one of her shoulders, hand stroking the other one. She turns her face and rests her cheek against his knee, nodding.

"You were the mayor. I liked that." Her smile is too tight but it's a smile. "Little Mayor MacCready. I bet you were good at it."

"They'd have kicked my ass if I wasn't. We used to give each other nicknames, partly because we were kids and partly because some of us never had a name before Little Lamplight. Sometimes, if someone was being kind of obnoxious, we'd give them a crappy name until they smartened up."

"I should give you one," she says with a soft exhalation that's almost a laugh. "Earless."

MacCready can't help laughing along with her. "Because I never listen? Hey, I only don't listen when you're trying to get rid of me."

"I wouldn't have done it for any other reason." Shay's eyes flutter shut, her long lashes lie still on her cheeks. In a few rare moments on the road, he gets to watch her sleep, and he loves that. This, he doesn't like at all. "I just wanted things to be better for us."

"Us?" MacCready gets out a canteen to wet the bandana he keeps around his neck to filter out dust storms.

"I mean everyone," she says softly. "But also us. I just thought.." She trails off while he wipes her face down with cool water.

"Thought what?" He doesn't care about the holotape as much as he cares about the answer to that question.

"I thought if things were better, we could maybe send for Duncan and you could be with him again. Maybe it would be like, maybe we could be like family, if things were good." Shay forces her eyes open and, in the faint glow of the last lights still functioning, he can see she's unfocused behind the lens of her tears.

"We. You and me?" She's slipping. It's not like her to cry.

"Yes." Shay manages a nod. "I can't, we can't, just be selfish. There's work. Can't have kids when you have to fight all the time, right?" That last word is an actual sob.

"I'm gonna give you the last Stimpak," he says, pushing aside the dream she's drawing for him in favour of focusing on the present. "You'll be fine. We'll be fine. And we can talk about all that later. Whatever we find in Jackson, we'll work it out." He jabs the last Stimpak into her side as far down as he can reach under the pillar crushing her, hoping it'll spread down to where her injuries are worst.

"I figured even if you didn't want that, you'd want Duncan," Shay says, shaping her words carefully on too-little breath. "I couldn't save Shaun but I could at least give you back your son. That's why you needed to go. You still have your child."

MacCready takes a slow breath. "I'm not okay with that plan." He's inexplicably angry at her even though he's terrified he's going to lose her. "You're not usually that stupid. If you asked me, and you didn't, I don't want to trade you in for a chance to be happy without you. You wouldn't go along with that, neither will I. We get there together or we don't get there at all. That's it."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." This time, Shay's a little more focused and she gives him a crooked smile that fades the next time she inhales. "God. That hurts. How can something hurt if I can't feel it? Can we agree I've been punished enough?"

"No." MacCready isn't about to let her off the hook. "I think I'm gonna call you Two-Fifty until you make this up to me."

"Two-Fifty?" The stare she gives him is almost daunting, or it would be if she wasn't flat on her back under several hundred pounds of computer.

"Yeah. That's how much you have to pay me if you want me to go along with your terrible ideas." He sticks his tongue out at her. "You either hire me to do what I'm told or you take me along because we're partners and you let me decide for myself."

"I don't have any money," Shay says, after a moment's consideration. "I didn't bring any."

"Well, there you go, Two-Fifty. You're stuck."

"I know that." She snorts at him like Dogmeat does and he's not sure who got it from whom.

"I mean with me." He laughs at her in spite of himself.

"I know that, too, Earless." Her amusement fades a moment later. "I really don't want to die here, you know."

"You're not going to, I promise. Third Stimpak's the charm, you look better already." MacCready pushes himself to his feet. "I don't want to mess with the debris on you, not even to find your gear. Dogmeat could smell it out, I'd just be screwing around and I could make things worse. I'm gonna see if there's anything in here I can use for a pair of skids to get under that computer pillar on you."

Benefit of growing up in caves is he doesn't need much light to navigate. He'll find something. Maybe there were some beams exposed back in the hall when the ceiling came down. He's headed that way when he hears something skittering.

Shay hears it, too. "MacCready..."

"I got it." He pulls his gun and creeps toward the door. It's something running, sounds like a dog. Can't be, there's no way to get down here. Maybe a mole rat. Wouldn't be-- MacCready almost fires on the shadow racing down the hall toward him but some subconscious recognition keeps his finger from tightening.

Dogmeat knocks him on his ass as he barrels past with something in his mouth.

"Damn it, Dogmeat. You're supposed to be gone!"

"What are you doing?" Shay doesn't sound happy either. "I told you to go, what is wrong with you two?"

Dogmeat drops a yellow metal box with a crash. Chems. Emergency chems. Not meds, but maybe...MacCready holsters his gun and comes to check it out.

"I nearly put a hole in you," he says angrily.

Bark, bark, bark. You'd have to hit me, first. Dogmeat throws himself down next to Shay and licks her face happily.

"I would not have missed. I don't miss." MacCready opens the box to see what Dogmeat found. Looks like he managed to rip it off a wall somewhere, which is impressive.

Med-X, that's a welcome sight. Not what they need but it'll keep Shay from suffering so much. Jet, not that MacCready needs to be any more on edge. And Bufftats.

"What were they doing in here, cage fighting?" MacCready takes a look on the outside of the box. 'Emergency Combat Kit, Special Forces Only'. "Close enough."

"What's in there?" Shay can't see so he holds up the chems for her. She weighs something in her mind for a moment, then seems to settle on something. "Give me the Med-X. Then use the Bufftats. If you lift this up a little, even, maybe Dogmeat can pull me free."

"Because me being high and crazy is going to be a good idea?" MacCready knows she's right, he's just stalling while he casts about for a way to improve on her plan. "How's Dogmeat going to pull you out, bite you?" Even as he says it, he has an answer. "Hang on, I'll use his harness."

Pitiful whine. Dogmeat hates the harness.

"Not on you, crybaby. On her. She wears the harness, you pull the rope."

Dogmeat's ears perk up. He doesn't mind that idea so much.

"Med-X first, so I can move you around enough to get the harness on you." MacCready starts clearing a path for Dogmeat so he's not dragging Shay over debris. "Once you're out, we'll make you some kind of stretcher. We're all leaving together."

Happy bark. At last, they agree on something.

Even with the Med-X, getting the harness on Shay is horrible. Hurting her is the last thing MacCready wants to do and he feels as miserable as Dogmeat's pathetic whines. Shay doesn't make a sound but MacCready knows he's doing harm. By the time he's done, she's greenish, not like the shine from her Pip-Boy light but under her skin, a sick green.

"I'm fine," she says, but she's sweaty and trembling and her breath is short again.

"You're not but we can pretend." MacCready makes a thick loop with the end of the rope so Dogmeat can get a good grip. "Here you go," he says, and Dogmeat takes it in his teeth.

"Sorry for making you do this." Shay watches him crack open the Bufftats. It's the good stuff, pharmaceutical grade. It should hit fast and last long.

"Yeah, well, I think this is a 'bad thing for the right reason' moment." There's two fragile tablets meant to dissolve on the tongue. MacCready needs all the strength he can muster so he pops them both. They taste a little like metal and mint and leave a film in his mouth as they soak into his blood.

"RJ?"

The chems hit between one breath and the next. Everything snaps into perspective, excruciatingly clear and crisp. MacCready can make out every mote of dust, every vague swirl of air around them. He doesn't feel different, the world feels smaller. Lighter.

His hands hurt when he gets a grip on the computer pillar but he doesn't care. What he cares about is Shay's scream when he hefts it the first few inches. The sound that comes out of her is distilled agony. The shift of weight must be crushing something in her legs or feet. Just tipping it up by degrees won't do. His muscles strain as he lets the computer back down, the fabric of his shirt parts between his shoulder blades.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," he mutters. He has to do this all at once or not at all. He looks down to gather himself and sees the red-black edge of a blood pool seeping out toward the toes of his filthy boots. That's her blood spilled because he's too weak, too slow, too stupid to stop it. He couldn't save Lucy, couldn't save Duncan on his own, and now he's going to lose Shay, too.

Maybe it's rage, maybe it's the chems taking full effect, but the world goes dark and the next thing he knows he's holding up hundreds of pounds of metal. Something parts in his wrist but his vision is clear again. He can see Shay's gear just beyond the impossibly wide pool of her blood.

"Dogmeat, get it."

Sharp bark. Dogmeat's on it. The dog darts under--trusting him not to drop the computer--and back out just as MacCready starts to falter. When MacCready lets go, the computer crashes down hard enough to make the floor shake.

"Shay?" He needs to be careful, the drugs are still coursing through him. Every move feels too small, he wants to stride across the countryside and tear up trees with his bare hands. Instead, he has to worry about her right now.

"I'm here." Barely. He can barely hear her. Her limbs are twisted and bloody, her clothes are sodden and turning from red to black as they dry. Somehow, her Pip-Boy is intact and her left hand is whole where it was tucked under her body.

"Don't die," he says, as though it will make a difference. With her, it just might. Dogmeat is pushing Shay's pack at him and then, when he pauses, pawing at the correct pocket. "You're going to get better, Two-Fifty."

He gets the first of a dozen Stimpaks into her and his own relief is better than anything he can imagine. That's the high. Making her well.

"I will pay you to not call me that," she says shakily. MacCready gives her another shot in hopes of stopping her bleeding as soon as possible.

"Thought you had no money." Now that she's medicated, MacCready is going to take advantage of his temporary strength to fashion a sled out of a fallen ceiling panel. The metal bends like plastic in his hands.

"I'll work it off." That's the snap he's used to hearing in her voice, faint as it is.

"On your back?"

"Is this how you romanced your first wife?" Shay grumbles. "Dogmeat, go bite him."

Sad whine. Dogmeat knows that's a bad idea.

"Actually, she had the good sense to go after me," MacCready says. That much is true, though he's not sure it counts as good sense.

"Did she dig a pit trap? I'm considering a pit trap. With spikes. Because that way you can't miss the point." Shay giggles at her own joke.

"You are drunk, Two-Fifty." MacCready is giddy with relief, himself. It's a foreign feeling but he likes it better than Jet or beer or anything else he's tried in his life. "Let's see if you still feel that way when we get home." He sets the makeshift sled down next to her so he can fasten it to Dogmeat's harness.

"I felt like that when we started and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna feel that way when we finish." Shay tips her head to watch him set up the sled. "Don't make me dig a hole in the middle of Sanctuary, Earless. Because I will."

"I'll get a shovel and a patio chair." MacCready takes off his coat to keep her warm and to protect her when he uses half the rope to secure her to the sled. "So you can dig and I can watch."

"Will you stop calling me Two-Fifty if I dig you a hole?" she barters. She's a good haggler, but not good enough.

"Not even if you marry me, Two-Fifty. But I'll buy you a beer when you're done." He dreads moving her but the Stimpaks are working and all that happens is she whimpers a little when he puts her on the sled.

"I have terrible taste in men," she grumbles.

Dogmeat whines, coming over to lick her face. Surely she doesn't mean him.

"Men, not dogs," Shay agrees. "I have great taste in dogs." She gets her left hand up enough to pet him. "Hey, my hand. I moved it."

"That's excellent, dear. I'm very proud." MacCready holds the harness out for Dogmeat. The Bufftats are wearing off and he feels unravelled but they have a long way to go before he can rest. At least this time Dogmeat is excited to get in the harness.

"Give me an hour and I'll be able to punch you in the nose, Earless," she warns, waving her hand vaguely before weakness takes over and her hand falls limp beside her.

"This is how it's gonna be, is it?" MacCready finishes buckling Dogmeat in, then gets Shay's pack settled between her feet, partly to brace her legs while they're travelling. "I get all the work and the all the abuse?"

"And me," Shay says. She sounds like she's fading again, he'll give her another Stimpak in a few minutes. "You get me. Me and whatever we find in Jackson."

"Deal." MacCready shoulders his pack, then takes a drink of water before he checks his watch. Fifteen minutes from now, drink and Stimpak break. "We can do this."

"We can do anything," Shay says firmly. "Right Dogmeat?"

Sharp bark. Dogmeat looks over his shoulder at her and sneezes.

"He has a point, Two-Fifty," MacCready says.

"Sorry, sorry. We can do anything--together." Shay corrects herself with a long-suffering sigh. "I'm going to be paying for this for the rest of my life, aren't I?"

"Every damn day." MacCready is looking forward to it.


End file.
